Herald on Salvation Army report

The Salvation Army’s annual stocktake on New Zealand’s social health has earned high credibility. It owes this to its recognition of progress as well as problems.

Its latest “state of the nation” report notes continuing improvement in many of the country’s most persistent concerns. Child poverty, for example. It finds children in material hardship, as measured by an absence of some essentials, has dropped from 21 per cent at the peak of the 2008-09 recession to 14 per cent last year, the level it was before the recession. That trend is not evident in the more standard statistical measure of poverty – living on less than 60 per cent of the median household income – but that is because earned incomes have risen.

Average weekly earnings rose 3 per cent last year while the cost of living rose only 0.1 per cent. Half of the increase in earnings came from pay rises, the rest from working more hours. At the same time, unemployment dropped for a second year in succession, though the proportion of the population employed did not rise as much as it did in 2013 and 2014, the peak of the Christchurch rebuild.

The population grew again by 2 per cent, slightly greater than the growth in employment which suggests the numbers retiring exceed the increase in new workers and immigration.

Perhaps most heartening, the report says increases in the statutory minimum wage have helped lift the incomes of the lowest paid faster than the highest paid employment, in finance. The gap may be wide but, contrary to careless rhetoric, it is apparently not necessarily getting wider.

Beneficiaries and their children do not benefit from increases in the minimum wage. Their incomes are indexed to price inflation rather than wages. That ought to change. But at least basic benefit rates will be raised by $25 from April 1.

The Salvation Army estimates 16.4 per cent of children are in families dependent on benefits, the lowest proportion since the late 1980s. That figure is close to the 14 per cent found lacking some of life’s essentials, suggesting the true extent of child poverty is around 14 per cent, not the 25 per cent often quoted by academic researchers.

Perhaps the best news of all, the Salvation Army’s findings are in pre-school education, which is now reaching beyond children in better-off areas thanks to efforts to reach the poorest deciles. Last year, 92.5 per cent of pre-school children received early education. It is a remarkable figure even if the quality of the education is uneven.

Not everything is improving. House prices moved further out of reach of first home-seekers in the year to last September. While the rate of capital gain slowed in the year to December, reflecting new taxes and lending restrictions on rental property, rents are rising more sharply as a result.

A compassionate country will never succumb to complacency while any of its citizens are in poverty or distress, but it does no harm to acknowledge the success of concerted effort.

burt

reflecting new taxes and lending restrictions on rental property, rents are rising more sharply as a result.

Increasing costs on land lords resulted in rent increases…. That’s contrary to the socialist play book of hit the rich pricks and make things better for the battlers …. weird how reality can’t comply with socialist la la land fantasy.

mikenmild

Scott

Jigsaw – I think you’ll find that the Salvation Army is involved in providing solutions to poverty in local communities, some of their work come from partnership with government agencies and some comes from their own fundraising among their congregations.

Jigsaw

Scott -I applaud the work the Sallies do in helping people but they should be careful – in my opinion – in expressing political solutions. Even their recent protest at people dumping waste in front of their buildings show that there are people who are hopeless at managing themselves and that whatever the money supplied and the political solutions worked out, there are people who are just in need a some radical solutions – like removing their children.

ross411

burt (9,846 comments) says:
February 19th, 2016 at 3:18 pm
reflecting new taxes and lending restrictions on rental property, rents are rising more sharply as a result.

Increasing costs on land lords resulted in rent increases…. That’s contrary to the socialist play book of hit the rich pricks and make things better for the battlers …. weird how reality can’t comply with socialist la la land fantasy.

Steady on burt. That’s a micro-aggression against a socialist’s right to ignore facts and common sense, and suggest whack-a-do and infeasible solutions. I saw Maggy W comment elsewhere about the bullying on this site, but until I read your comment I didn’t really believe it 😆 😯

ross411

Jigsaw (127 comments) says:
February 19th, 2016 at 4:16 pm
Scott -I applaud the work the Sallies do in helping people but they should be careful – in my opinion – in expressing political solutions. Even their recent protest at people dumping waste in front of their buildings show that there are people who are hopeless at managing themselves and that whatever the money supplied and the political solutions worked out, there are people who are just in need a some radical solutions – like removing their children.

Got an agenda you’re trying to support by linking unrelated things much? 🙄

Manolo

I’d never give them a cent. Not their job to tell us what the minimum wage should be, or what benefit levels should be. I want to lower poverty, not increase it with socialist policies that have proven to fail.

As if that’s not enough, their brand of Christianity is just bizarre, what with their silly army rankings and their refusal to even acknowledge basic practices like baptism and communion. There are better Christian organizations out there that are far more worthy of our charity dollar.

igm

Seems churches and their fuhrers are having too much to say. Popey made a dork of himself yesterday, now reading this shit makes me resolute in not supporting any of these supposedly Godley institutions . . . appears they are a front for lefty leeches, the ones who made us a secular society . . . talk about turning the other cheek!